“Gray Radio Gang” Reactivates Vintage Battleship Iowa HF Transmitter

It’s a massive project on a number of levels, but the so-called “Gray Radio Gang” that’s been working to restore some of the vintage US Navy radio gear onboard theBattleshipIowa(BB-61), docked in Los Angeles, recently fired up one of the vessel’s transmitters for the first time in about 25 years. Restoration team member Jim Jerzycke, KQ6EA, recounted on his “Every Blade of Grass”bloghow the group was finally able to get 950 W into a dummy antenna from one transmitter on 20 meters.

“We still have quite a way to go before we attempt to put one [transmitter] on the air, but the results were quite encouraging for at transmitter that was last powered up sometime in 1990,” Jerzycke said in his blog. “BB-61 should be on the air later this year with abigvoice!”

He told ARRL that, once the transmitter — or transmitters — are deemed operational, they probably would not be used for routine Amateur Radio work. TheIowaalready has a ham radio station, NI6BB, under the auspices of the Battleship Iowa Amateur Radio Association (BIARA), an ARRL-affiliated club. BIARA’s president is Doug Dowds, W6HB. NI6BB has more modern gear but makes use of the ship’s own antennas.”

Warning: file_get_contents(https://plusone.google.com/_/+1/fastbutton?url=https%3A%2F%2Fqrznow.com%2Fgray-radio-gang-reactivates-vintage-battleship-iowa-hf-transmitter%2F): failed to open stream: HTTP request failed! HTTP/1.0 404 Not Found
in /home/qrznow/public_html/wp-content/themes/goodnews5/framework/functions/posts_share.php on line 151